


Idle

by Salty_but_Sweet



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: AU, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Gen, John's musings, One Shot, Pre-Halo 5, Unresolved thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-06-26 22:49:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15672867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salty_but_Sweet/pseuds/Salty_but_Sweet
Summary: After Librarian's revelations, nothing was simple anymore. Even if Cortana was back.





	Idle

**Author's Note:**

> I think that this most certainly is one of those fics that people either relate to or consider to be as boring as hell. Probably not my best of works, but I personally hate it when people don't cross-post all their works on different sites, and the reader has to jump between sites to read everything. (:
> 
> Disclaimer: Halo belongs to Bungie & 343i.

Quietness.

It didn't fit well either for Cortana or John.

Cortana had always been used to her sub-systems constant feedback and nearly died of boredom during her isolation on the Forward Unto Dawn. Likewise, John wasn't too fond of waiting either. Staying out of the battle or waiting for the strike to happen could always be sensed in the air. In the past year or two silence had also gotten deeper meanings, the absence of Cortana. And more than that, it had left the strengthening voice of a doubt to be heard. And even though Cortana was with him now, the doubts hadn't been replaced.

Nothing was simple anymore.

Didact, Locke and ONI were out there, maybe a step or two behind them, but very close still. And more than that, there was no clear knowledge of where Halsey, Arbiter and the rest of the Sanghelios would stand. Whose side would they be on?

Cortana had voiced him once that it wasn't so much about the demarcation lines anymore; it was about circumstances and favors. Arbiter and Halsey would support them, but they were also tied with their responsibility towards their other allies. Arbiter's fate also critical to the peace between Sanghelios and humans.

The complicated relationship between Arbiter and Jul 'Mdama was another frail part of the puzzle.

Even on this late evening when the Spartan and AI traveled the space it was evident that this "war" was not all fought by bullets, but with different kind of weapons. A political game of sorts which the said Spartan-II had never been too interested in — not that anyone would have wanted him to be either.

Cortana knew the game better than him, but it did them little good since she was officially destroyed and the two of them were only two players in the much larger game.

Because of the very nature of the war, it was always present.

_The great unknown._

Cortana could make predictions, run simulations and offer possibilities, but she had told John that in the end, it was up to him of what he wanted to do with his life. It was his reputation and future on the line. She could help and decide about herself, but with this, she would not — could not — tell him the right course of action.

And it was silently driving John crazy. The physical extortion and the nearly constant training offering no true relief as he finished his push-ups.

He, like Cortana, had learned his own humanity the hard way, the ever-existing danger of making mistakes. In other words, he had learned to regret.

Even though it might be a proof of his humanity, it made every decision harder, the range of options unbearable and for the first time in a long time had introduced him to fear.

Fear of everything falling right through his fingers.

His old self would have been able to rest between battles in quiet nights like this. But then again, he had changed and the restlessness had become more pronounced.

He was as restless as a Spartan-II could be.

An outsider would say he looked pretty much like his old self, but Cortana could read the drifting movements of his eyes and the subtle uncontrolled movements in his actions. Even if the feelings had been his constant companion during the last few years, they still felt foreign for him.

It had become similar to a disease.

The restlessness, discomfort, and anxiety had seemed to spread from his mind to his gears. His Mjolnir-armor had started to constrict from places, limiting his movements. In addition, once or twice during shooting, he had noticed how the smoothness of old practices had vanished for a few split seconds. Like his thoughts had stopped or being rerouted without any clear reason.

That anxiety had added to itself. He was supposed to be a fine soldier, and no matter what Locke had implied, he still wanted to remain as one. Whether it was because of self-defense, protecting Cortana or fate, he did not question.

Ironically, it was one of the only things he didn't question on these quiet moments.

Somehow in a matter of seconds, everything he had known had crumpled. In reality, it was a much larger set of events, but the change had been so rapid, so total, that it still left him questioning.

The questions replaying in his head like a broken record as he changed his shirt and took off his shoes.

Who was he?

Who was he to be?

And by whose orders?

It wasn't just about UNSC or Halsey and maybe not even about the Librarian and the Forerunners. Cortana had tried to console him by explaining that the scale of the problem could be largely due to the fact that he didn't know who he was, even to himself.

Somehow the public distortion about his image and persona seemed therefore only fitting, because now for the first time it was up to him to define himself.

The lack of a solid identity, or the lack of self-acceptance, was also producing other questions about goals and motivation. After finding Cortana it had been like this, day after day, aimless. Threats were coming from so many different directions that he had no clear idea of where to head first.

When the other questions seemed to wait more pressing times, one prevailed - Cortana.

Librarian had mentioned to John how even Cortana had a purpose when it came to him. It was most likely that she wasn't with him because of a chance or a whim of fate.

Getting ready to go to bed John reminisced those lonely nights hunting for clues and leads when he had questioned their relationship. 'Was it real', would never be the absolutely right term to define his lingering thoughts, but held similarity in terms of the idea. Did he really need her or was he just supposed to feel that way? Was she too, a part of a larger preprogrammed plan to use him?

In the end, those doubts had been taken over by his unexplainable need to be with her. Cortana was one of the very few factors in his life to bring any sense of logic or reliance, and he had felt crippled without that help. Having Cortana with him was the foremost step to even consider tackling any other issues about his path in life.

John glanced at the nearest holotable.

Cortana's purpose had also generated another more pressing question in his mind: If they were in some way meant to be together with Cortana, why on Earth had they been taken apart so many times? Gravemind, Rampancy, Requiem… was it all just a pattern starting to form out?

If he dared to be honest with himself, he knew that without those incidents he would have never started to value her this much. Their experiences on Halos, High Charity and Requiem had left them with memories and feelings that they would likely never be willing or able to share with other people. The only comfort for those pains and horrors being that there was another sentient being who could understand without being told.

In idle moments like this, John felt deeply how his relationship with Cortana was most pressingly expressed not in the moments when they were safe together, but on those when they were tortured souls apart.

That didn't mean that he didn't feel that deep-seated happiness when just watching her process information, or the raise in the corners of his mouth when she joked. And they could talk; he remembered well how Cortana had woken him up time after time on the Cairo Station just to keep him company. Moreover, they were an exceptional team on the battlefield.

But none of that was anything compared to the need and loneliness he felt when she wasn't with him. In the end, it had taken her presumed destruction to make him truly understand and feel that need.

 _With that want came the fear_.

It had been his duty to protect Cortana from the start, or their duty to protect each other as she wanted to remind him from time to time. Her unsaid meanings of "Don't blame yourself, John" and "We are in this together, equally responsible" never really reaching his ears.

He wasn't sure when it had become personal.

Somewhere along the line Cortana has started to matter, and therefore protecting her had achieved a new meaning as protecting himself — as _John_.

The understanding forced him to reflect himself as human. A human that could get scars. Something that could be broken.

_Something that might have been broken a very long time ago._

And it was clear reminder how Cortana tended to be the smarter one of them in certain subjects. She hadn't given up the Index, hadn't given up against Rampancy, and had given herself to save him and everyone at Earth. Maybe it was her ghost memories from Halsey's feelings of regret, maybe it was something to do with Colonel Ackerson, but somehow the choices she had made conveyed her resolve to be able to live with herself. To escape from all of those questions that had haunted him for the past months.

Had becoming more human, more like the man he might have been in some other universe, been worth it?

He could say individual moments when it had been most definitely worth it: learning to lead the Blue Team, destroying the first Halo ring, saving Kelly from Didact's grasp, bringing Cortana back. But all those incidents were accompanied by memories of Sam's death, leaving Cortana on High-Charity and the countless number of deaths on so many of his missions.

And again, nothing was simple anymore.

And the answers were nowhere to be seen or heard.

It was just quiet in the dark quarters. Like on so many nights before.

His small look towards the holotable was the tiny clue that Cortana had luckily taken up to notice. Her glow giving little more light to the room and her voice breaking up the silence – letting John push back the questions for the next quiet moment. But, without a clear goal or objective, before that silence would be truly heard, it would come as first thing in the morning, again and again.


End file.
